The Best of GO

The Shot

November 7, 2011
For the first time in its 110-year history, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to three women from the developing world. Tawakkul Karman (pictured), a 33-year-old journalist in Yemen, is the chairwoman of Women Journalists Without Chains, an organization that defends human rights and the freedom of expression. Both before and during the “Arab spring,” Karman played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen. She flashed a peace sign at her headquarters in Sanaa, Yemen when she heard about the honor. Her fellow laureates are President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, Africa’s first democratically elected female head of state; and activist Leymah Gbowee, also of Liberia, who was trained as a social worker before organizing the peace movement that ended Liberia’s second civil war in 2003. All three women were honored by the Nobel Committee “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peacebuilding work.”

Nobel Peace Prize Winner

You might also like...